Southwest Airlines Community

Greetings Community Southwest!   Starting this weekend, SoCalFlyer97 has a marathon line-up of Southwest Hotels Rapid Rewards Points Plus reservations all booked up through the end of April. Seven hotels, Eleven nights to be exact...a third of the month spent away from home. Two hotels involving a pair of roundtrip Southwest flights.     To those who frequent my posts, I stay at all kinds of hotels and different brands with just about all of them booked via Southwest Hotels or RocketMiles with the Free Cancelation option thanks to the thousands of Companion Pass-Eligible Rapid Reward Points that I can redeem toward flights. I do have scheduled business at all of these locations; I'm not just racking up airline points here.   Just like my marathon run from last October... https://community.southwest.com/t5/Rapid-Rewards/Oct-23-Southwest-Hotels-Five-One-Night-Trips-at-Five-Points-Plus/m-p/164506 ...there's a mix of both big chain and smaller independent inns that have my name on it.     In the coming days, I'll be posting updates in this thread of both the fights and the hotel experiences ranging from the booking process, value of points received versus money spent, and the actual stay experience. I've done several bookings through Southwest Hotels in the past year and have not had any serious problem that went unresolved. The only goof-up I experienced thus far was when I booked a room via Southwest Hotels only to learn on check-in day that the hotel relocated literally one parcel to the west and the computer booked me at the old property's location which was operating under another brand upon arrival but with the same advertised amenities.   Other than that...I've had zero issues with SW Hotels. Will this continue?   Hotel #1 will be in Corona CA. Which one will it be? Hint: SoCalFlyer97 has stayed there before and published the experience here on this board. Stay tuned. ... View more

Greetings Community Southwest:     SoCalFlyer97 took a day trip from SAN to LAS and back last week for a personal trip combined with a final visit to the historic Tropicana Casino Resort which is scheduled to close effective next Tuesday, April 2. Several folks from social media have recorded hours of combined streams and video footage documenting the hotel's final days of operation. I took a bunch of pictures too but will share some of the more unique moments of the trip.     We begin by documenting how the outbound flight went aboard the MAX8. Despite the news media painting a negative picture on Boeing lately, I felt completely safe aboard this plane. One can see from the terminal window ground crews hard at work doing their routine work and inspections. Being a frequent flyer, I can state for a fact that Southwest does a thorough job in quality-checking its fleet before each departure. For this trip, I managed to lock in a $39 fare each way from a prior "Super Low Sale Fares: As Low as $39" local promo.   Plane: 737-MAX8, N8748Q Full Flight, On Time Preboards: 14   For the record, this trip had several wheelchaired passengers and their assistants; hence a high pre-board count. However it appeared they were all entitled to use the benefit; thus everything appeared fair and square; so no complaints. Upon pulling out of the gate, I soon discovered that San Diego had some visiting 'dignitaries':   N280WN 737-700 Missouri One: N8619F 737-8H4 Illinois One: N945WN 737-700 Florida One: And the Disney Wonder too:   Arrived in LAS with no troubles. Took care some personal things in Vegas including a visit with a close friend.   Later, I saw that our pal Leo the Lion was getting a nice treatment:     Arrived at the Tropicana for a final farewell as this is my last trip to LAS before it closes. As mentioned, I'm not going to repeat what many other social media folks are publishing; if you want the whole tour of the resort, feel free to search for those. Here were some of the more unique moments:   The Tropicana has a vintage stained glass ceiling spanning a large section of its casino. When I went upstairs to tour the public areas of the mezzanine level, I had a unique opportunity to photo-document the back-end of this feature as I found the door from the public hallway leading into the 'backstage' area was open:     I waited for the crews to come back to the public hallway and they were gracious enough to allow me to peak in from the hallway and photograph the behind-the-scenes of this fabulous piece of art.       Standard lights beam on reflectors to give the window its soothing glow from the casino floor below. As lots of people are petitioning, I hope the building inspectors and workers can find a safe way to move and salvage this piece of Las Vegas history. I think they can and can speculate that's the reason why the workers were in this area looking at the back-end of this stained glass window piece, but I'm not an engineer and I can't state whether or not they will be able to save this feature. I hope they do.   The next piece I would like to spotlight are some of the hotel's vintage interior design features including the floor and low ceiling.   They don't make brown tile floors like these any more in Vegas hotels.     Totally 70's interior in the mezzanine hallway near the hotel offices and the stained glass window backstage room:     And the low popcorn ceiling which in some areas can be touched.     The Tropicana allowed the general public access to the guest floors, even to the very top floor where the high-end suites dwelt. Here's a few shots of both the 'regular' and the glass Otis traction elevators with that unique Tropicana interior design:         Pressing and holding the Ground Floor and the Door Close buttons at the same time for the entire ride down granted me a non-stop descent from the top floor down to the ground floor aboard this glass lift. The trick is not guaranteed to work every time as they all say.   Some more of Trop's elevators: This one links the casino/lobby area to the bridge that connects to the Club Tower and convention area:       And this one takes guests and the general public from the Casino to the Tropicana Blvd pedestrian bridge to the MGM Grand:     It looks like the hotel just recently spent a good amount of money modernizing this lift. Not sure if the fixtures or the elevator as a whole can be re-purposed or moved elsewhere before they knock down the building.   ...And I just had to do some more bird watching from the 21st floor of the Club tower.     Lastly, I had a chance to share a meal with my friend at Robert Irvine's Public House, located at the pedestrian bridge entrance.     There's no official word just yet of when or if the celebrity chef will relocate his pub elsewhere. The food was great and prices were decent considering the quality and large portion sizes. I'm sure Irvine likely spent some good money on the interior design of his restaurant which appears to be in great shape; sad to see it go.   Time to head back. Flight was running a few minutes behind upon arrival at LAS but still in the 'Green'. When I got to the gate area, I saw that the convention of newly produced Boarding Position Poles have just arrived.     Return Flight: Plane: 737-MAX8, N8901Q 67% Full, Originally about 15 minutes behind Preboards: 7   So everybody at the gate was ready to board until we realized that the plane that is actually docked at our gate was for another earlier flight that was delayed pushing back, thus the MAX8 plane pictured above was the aircraft that would take us back to SAN but had to hold in this area for an additional 20 minutes until the gate cleared.   Once we boarded, I noticed this MAX8 had the new larger overhead bins installed with a sign to turn carry on bags on their sides. Nice!   Final glimpse of the Trop before it closes.     Plane had about another 30 minute combined tarmac hold: about 20 minutes at the gate and a 10 minute hold on the taxiway, likely due to high air traffic headed into SAN. With the delay came the greater good of another beautiful sunset landing into SAN.       Plane also recovered some good time in the air thanks to a direct route from wheels up to wheels down.   Prior Trip Reports: https://community.southwest.com/t5/Inflight-Experience/March-24-Southwest-Flight-Photo-Trip-Report-Sacramento-Airport/m-p/170034   https://community.southwest.com/t5/Inflight-Experience/Feb-24-Flight-Southwest-Hotels-Trip-Report-Hotel-Apache-Westgate/m-p/169582#M7816   More Info on the SAN-LAS Flight Route: https://www.southwest.com/routes/flights-from-san-diego-to-las-vegas   Safe Travels, SoCalFlyer97 ... View more

Hello Community Southwest:     Here's a trip report of a recent motel stay in Garden Grove on a Friday night booked through Southwest Hotels. Drive-up motels in this part of Orange County have recently been in the negative spotlight in the news media. The City of Anaheim for example was forced to close and knock down a similar property last year near Knott's Berry Farm that was mired in all kinds of bad trouble.   Normally, I would opt out of staying at one of these places mainly due to security concerns.   So when I was doing my hotel shopping knowing that the hospitality market was going to be very expensive in Garden Grove considering both Disneyland and Knotts were only a few miles away from my destination on a Friday night, the humble Tropic Lodge showed up in the search results for a good rate.   The place showed a solid 7/10 average review for an old motel which surprised me...600 RR Points...$113 after taxes with the "Deluxe Room" upgrade. After looking thorougly at the reviews, pictures, and other hotels nearby that priced way higher, I figured, "Let's give it a try!"     Tropic Lodge Motel Room Type: Deluxe Room, Refrigerator & Microwave Rapid Rewards Points Plus: 600 SW Hotels Rate after Taxes: $113 (w/ Deluxe Room; not listed on RocketMiles) Competing Booking Site Rates: Other 3rd Party Lowest Price per Trivago: $90.62 (for Economy Room) With the Deluxe Room upgrade, I figured the mark-up for the Rapid Rewards points was minimal and therefore worth it.   Had no issues with booking on Southwest Hotels but the Tropic does appear to enforce 3pm or later check-in. Arriving earlier meant showing up to a locked door into the front desk area. Wasn't a big deal for me because I arrived at 2:50pm for a 3pm check-in time and waited around. Once the lobby opened, check-in went smoothly. Incidentals deposit was $60.      Being an old motel, my expectations were not that high. However, the parking lot appeared to be recently resealed with a nice jet-black appearance.       The room was very well insulated and noise-resistant and I was able to sleep like a baby. The room's flooring was recently redone; wooden shutters for the window appeared to be recently installed to give it a modernized look-and-feel. Even when emergency vehicles passed by on Garden Grove Blvd, outside noise was minimal. HVAC worked like a gem. Wi-Fi was easy to log into but was a little unstable.     What I really liked about this place (and think this was why the ratings and reviews were in the 7's) was the Tropic strictly enforced guest room and property access. That meant if you're not on the reservation list, don't even think of going into a room or the guest corridors. There's cameras everywhere and guests getting caught letting strangers into their rooms might be booted from the property. I recall signing an agreement that made that policy positively clear. That basically meant there was zero trouble on the property after the sun went down.     Overall, really cannot complain. When I book hotel rooms, I basically need a private room with a bed to sleep in, a working bathroom, and functioning HVAC...And Tropic did its job.   Prior Trip/SW Hotel Reports: https://community.southwest.com/t5/Inflight-Experience/Feb-24-Flight-Southwest-Hotels-Trip-Report-Hotel-Apache-Westgate/m-p/169582   https://community.southwest.com/t5/Inflight-Experience/Jan-24-Photo-Trip-amp-Southwest-Hotels-Report-SAN-LAS/m-p/167933   Safe Travels! SoCalFlyer97 ... View more